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Two words: mandatory spending.
While there is nothing unexpected about the demonization of Reagan, who threatened both the GOP and Democrat wings of the Progressive Party, the real cancer in the U.S. is the growth of entitlement spending. This is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Throw in some real accounting and look at the total unfunded federal liabilities [pjmedia.com]. Because really: wouldn't life be better for all of us sheep on some federal debt plantation?

people receiving social security spend their money. giving money to the poor is a sure way to boost spending and encourage consumerism. giving money to the rich makes them lazy and unmotivated. the question really is do we want consumerism, and cheap not well thought out garbage. the government could sign a law today giving everyone under $200,000 in wealth cash for whatever reason that sounded legit and it would encourage massive unprecedented consumerism. thing is the people who have it good don't want t

Did you know the term, "unfunded liabilities" is a rather new expression, invented around the end of the George HW Bush administration? It was the brainchild of a Republican strategist, a Frank Luntz type. It is a meaningless term that you will only hear during Democratic administrations. There were unfunded liabilities during the Reagan, Bush and Bush II administrations, but a Lexis search will turn up virtually no instances of the term being used. Most humans have enormous unfunded liabilities. All th

I'll make you a counter-offer. Let's figure out how to monetize your "partisan bullet points", so that when the doom arrives, we can discharge the debt.
Now that "Yangtze" Yellen has replaced "Zimbabwe" Ben, that day creeps all the closer.
How do I know your dodge is a farce?
(a) (Then Senator) Barack Obama himself decried raising the national debt limit under Bush.
(b) The Vichy GOP is doing precisely frack-all to reign in the Federal Reserve and affect any course change.

How do I know your dodge is a farce?(a) (Then Senator) Barack Obama himself decried raising the national debt limit under Bush.

Obama's position was similar to the GOP's position today (the entire GOP). It's not the higher debt limit they oppose, it's what's being done with the money. I think there's a good case to make that Obama and Bush are two sides of the same coin. And make no mistake, it's a coin that Cruz and Paul and the rest want very much t

As with Governor McDonnell at the end, Ronnie took the piss. Watch his farewell speech. Guy was beat. My chief gripe with the Gipper, though, is the lack of any intellectual heir. That the country snapped back to Progressive form afterward is all you need to know.
Neither Ronnie nor Perot in 1992 had the internet to backstop them.
Sucks to be ahead of your time, I suppose.

I've been force-seeding this PBS Frontline: "Two American Families" episode since the day it aired.

(I also indefinitely force-seed some other Frontline episodes: one on domestic surveillance ("Spying on the Home Front;"") bullshit forensic pseudoscience (accepted in most US courts as incontrovertible truth) and its life/family-shattering consequences ("The Real CSI;" and the counterproductive "War on Drugs" and its life/family-shattering consequences ("The House I Live In" (Independent Lens; not Frontline.)